Travelers are often drawn to the appeal of local folklore when they’re traveling abroad and experiencing new culture. But when the family in the new screenlife horror film, ‘Bloat,’ realize that as the effects of those foreign myths begin to lose their appeal, their lives will be changed forever.

The supernatural movie stars Ben McKenzie, Bojana Novakovic, Malcolm Fuller, Sawyer Jones and Kane Kosugi. The drama was written and directed by Tokyo-based filmmaker Pablo Absento, who made her feature-length debut on the project. ‘Bloat’ is now available on digital and on demand, courtesy of Lionsgate.

McKenzie served as a produced on the movie alongside Timur Bekmembetov. The latter has has become a prominent figure in the screenlife genre over the past decade by producing such hit features as ‘Searching,’ ‘Missing’ and ‘Unfriended.’

In ‘Bloat,’ the young Kyle (Jones) has a near-death drowning accident in a lake while on vacation in Japan with his older brother, Steve (Fuller), and their mother, Hannah (Novakovic). After the incident, Kyle and his family are horrified to discover he has become possessed by a legendary demon from the depths of the lake.

As a result, the family must race against time to save Kyle’s soul. In the process, the boys’ father, Jack (McKenzie), searches the internet for answers about how he can save his younger son. While the family’s pursuit continues, the evil monster inside Kyle tears them apart as it seeks to destroy everyone in its path.

Jones and Fuller generously took the time recently to talk about starring in ‘Bloat’ during an exclusive interview over Zoom. Among other things, the actors discussed how Absento easily communicated her vision for the drama as the writer-director, but also encouraged them to share their own ideas. The performers also shared their excitement in creating their physicality and the camerawork for their roles in the supernatural screenlife horror film.

Film Factual (FF): Sawyer, you play Kyle, and Malcolm, you play Steve, in the new screenlife horror film, ‘Bloat.’ How were you both cast in the movie?

Sawyer Jones (SJ): Well, I got the audition from my agents, who sent me the whole script. I read the script through and I was like, “This is great. The script was really well written.” I just read through the whole thing really fast and I was like, “I really want to be a part of this.” So it definitely gave me inspiration to just audition for it and give my best effort.

Malcolm Fuller (MF): It was pretty much the same with me. My agency submitted me for the role and then they sent me the audition sides, the script and the role description. I thought it was pretty interesting. I always liked the screenlife/found footage genre, and I also love horror movies. So I thought, I’m definitely interested in this project.

FF: Once you signed on to star in the drama, what was it like for you both to work with Pablo Absento as the feature’s writer-director?

MF: While we were on set, Pablo was fantastic to work with. She was really great at telling us where she got the inspiration for this kind of movie, and how she envisioned thing. She was just really communicative. But she also gave us room to use creative license make things our own.

SJ: Yes, it was definitely an awesome experience. Pablo was so good at directing and had such a clear vision that it really helped us out.

We were able to follow her directions very well. She was also able to let us work on stuff our own way and take creative liberties. So it was really fun and a great experience.

FF: Speaking of taking your own creative liberties, did Pablo encourage you and your co-stars to improvise and add your own suggestions to the story?

MF: I think we did do some of that.

SJ: Yes, we definitely had the opportunity to add some fun stuff in there ourselves, but Paolo had such a great vision. So we really just followed her lead.

FF: What was it like getting to work with your co-stars on the film during the production?

SJ: It was fantastic. All the actors did such an amazing job. We also did a lot of off-screen fun stuff together, like going to Shinto Temple in Tokyo. We went to the top of this really cool building. We also had a lot of great cast dinners.

So we built off-screen relationships to help with our on-screen ones. That helped us act really well together.

MF: Yes, I agree. We definitely got to know Bojana (Novakovic), who played our mom, pretty well because we spent a lot of time with her on set.

Although I think acting with a person who’s on the other side of a FaceTime call is kind of weird to do. But I think we did pretty well doing that with Bojana and Ben McKenzie, who played our dad.

FF: ‘Bloat’ being a screenlife horror movie, and you shot some scenes over FaceTime, like you just mentioned, Malcolm. What was the experience like for both of you to make a feature that takes place entirely on computer and phone screens?

SJ: It was really fun and unique in a lot of ways. But even though a lot of my scenes were screenlife, I was still talking with other actors, so I didn’t I didn’t really end up having to change how I would act in any way. But it was fun to see how they blocked the scenes and did the camera. So it was a really fascinating experience

MF: I would say it was the same for me. In one or two scenes, I actually had to hold the camera because I was on FaceTime. There was this one diner scene where they had this tiny little camera. I was holding it because it was a phone, so that was pretty new to me – I’ve never done that before. So that was cool.

FF: The movie is set, and was shot, in Japan. What was the experience like going to Asia to shoot the drama?

SJ: It was fantastic.

MF: I loved it. I’ve never been out of the U.S. before, so going to Japan was great. We got to have all sorts of good food – we had a lot of sushi and rice.

Like Sawyer said, we went to a Shinto temple. The architecture of the Japanese houses was pretty cool.

SJ : Yes, it was awesome. The food was just so delicious. We got to see a lot of really cool stuff, as well, like Mount Fuji.

The convenience stores were awesome, too. They had the best snacks and the food!

FF: With ‘Bloat’ being a supernatural horror film, were you able to perform any stunts for your scenes?

SJ: Well, I have one fun scene where I got to swim in a lake. I had to swim while the camera was falling down. I had to swim fast, but also not too fast so I could time it right as the camera lands and I catch on to it. I also had to be wearing clothes while I swam. So that was definitely a fun and challenging scene to film.

MF: My favorite scene was the one where we were eating dinner with our grandparents and I had a burger. But every time we would have to reshoot and do another take, they would get me a whole new burger.

So I would take like one or two bites out of a burger and then I would get a new one over and over again. So I went through about 20 burgers, but I only had a couple bites of each. So I enjoyed that – I love burgers!

FF: With ‘Bloat’ also being a monster movie, what was it like to incorporate special effects into the drama?

SJ: It was really fun. Getting to do fun stuff with makeup that they’d added for special effects was really fun. It was also cool to see the process – everyone worked so well on the set. So it was really cool to see the results of their work.

MF: I love horror movies, but filming a horror movie is very different from watching a horror movie. But it was still really cool to be there on set, with Sawyer being creepy right in front of me!